


The Lost Gem

by ImaginAria



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 14:31:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4628808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImaginAria/pseuds/ImaginAria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Gem forgotten on Earth since the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lost Gem

**Author's Note:**

> Originally from the Self-Insert Weekend on tumblr a long ways back.

Emerald spent most of her time looking out at the stars. Well, one star specifically. Home. She wondered what had changed since she'd been gone—probably a lot. Emerald wasn't sure quite how much time had passed since the Gem War, but she knew it was a lot. This planet—Earth--had gone around its sun hundreds of times. And Emerald had been all alone.  
She lifted her hand and found resistance. Looking down, she realized vines had grown over it again. Perhaps today would be a good day to get up and walk around. She rose from her knees, vines and dirt pulling off her tattered dress. She'd lost her slippers a long time ago: if she regenerated she could fix it but nothing here could kill her.  
She walked, as she did, in a trance- like way down to the nearby river and stepped into it, letting the freezing cold, clear glacier water wash away all the grime and dust.  
When she emerged, she retied her long green hair into a braid down the left side of her head, framing her gem which glimmered in her left eye. She curled up on a rock in the sun, letting the light dry her.  
“Perhaps I should see,” she murmured, voice creaking with disuse. And she blinked her left eye and concentrated.  
When she opened her eye again, her gem shimmered and a series of images filled the meadow in front of her. Figures, tall and short, round and thin. Gems she'd once known. Prominent among them, a trio of young gems, so ready to take on the world and the war. One dark green, the only face she'd seen in the last hundreds years. One in a beautiful blue dress, who had vanished before the war was over and hadn't been heard from since. And one, who combined both elements, who had betrayed everyone in the end.  
“Stupid planet,” Emerald's images vanished as a voice—a voice that wasn't hers—cut through the forest. “This tracker better not be broken—if I came all the way out here for nothing I...I...”  
But apparently the voice was too annoyed to figure out what she would do before, a moment later, she appeared in the clearing that Emerald's rock bordered.  
It was a Gem. That much was obvious. But she was like no Gem Emerald had seen before. She wore a tight polygonal jumpsuit in varying shades of dark green, her pale yellow hair was styled in a diamond shape, and a white mask covered the top half of her face. A computer panel floated over her left hand. She was studying this screen very intently—so much so that she walked right up to Emerald's rock, still muttering.  
“Useless piece of junk. I can't believe Homeworld wanted me to trace...this...” She'd finally looked up to see Emerald sitting on the rock, staring at her.  
For a second, they were both completely frozen, and then the Gem shouted, “YOU!”  
Emerald just blinked. She was honestly still trying to figure out if this Gem was just an illusion from her eye. “Sorry?”  
The new Gem looked like she was about to say something for a moment—several somethings actually as her mouth sort of flapped open and closed like one of the fish Emerald sometimes watched in the rivers—and finally settled on, “How long have you been here?”  
Emerald shrugged, “Since the war.”  
“Since the war?”  
“Everybody left. And I was still here.” And that was all there was to it. Emerald had stopped feeling bad about it long ago. “How are you here?”  
The new Gem didn't bother answering her and instead talked at the computer screen on her hand, “Located new Gem. Identified as an Emerald. Alliance currently unknown.”  
“How do you know my name? I don't know you.” Emerald said pleasantly.  
The Gem finished doing something on her screen and looked back at Emerald. She didn't answer her question but instead asked one of her own, “Do you know the Crystal Gems?”  
Emerald barely had to think, “They're dead. They all died in the War.” Basic facts.  
The Gem nodded, keeping her expression blank. “Will you help me?”  
Emerald considered, “I don't actually know anything about you. I'm not even sure that you're real.” She giggled a little. Talking to people was fun, she'd forgotten how fun it was.  
The Gem sighed, exasperation once again coloring her face, “I am Peridot. I was sent here by Homeworld to...collect things left over from the war. Including you, I suppose.”  
Emerald blinked, “You. Can you take me home?”  
Peridot's face remained blank, but Emerald could read victory in her eyes, “Yes.”  
“Then yes. All I want, all I've wanted for so long, is to go home.”


End file.
